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on Economics of Strategic Management |
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Issue of 2008‒08‒21
three papers chosen by Joao Jose de Matos Ferreira University of the Beira Interior |
| By: | Marcus Wagner |
| Abstract: | Innovation activities in high technology industries provide considerable challenges for technology and innovation management. In particular, since these industries have a long history of radical innovations taking place through distinct industry cycles of higher and lower demand, firms frequently consider the option to use acquisitions as a means for technology sourcing. The paper investigates this behaviour for three high technology industries, namely semiconductor manufacturing, biotechnology and electronic design automation which is a specific sub-segment of the semiconductor industry. It analyses the association of firm characteristics with different aspects of acquisition behaviour with a particular focus being put on innovation-related firm characteristics. The paper confirms a substitutive relationship between acquisitions and own research activities as well as between own and acquired firm patenting, but also finds that firm size, financial conditions and geographical origin of the firm matter for acquisition behaviour. |
| Keywords: | Acquisition, innovation, high technology, quantitative methods, research, R&D |
| JEL: | L10 L86 M20 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2008-055&r=cse |
| By: | Erin Marie Reid (Harvard Business School); Michael W. Toffel (Harvard Business School, Technology and Operations Management unit) |
| Abstract: | The challenges associated with climate change will require governments, citizens, and corporations to work collaboratively to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a task that requires information on companies' emissions levels, risks, and reduction opportunities. This paper explores the conditions under which firms respond to shareholders' requests for this information. Building on previous theories of how social activists inspire field-level change, we hypothesize that shareholder actions and regulatory threats are likely to prime firms to cooperate with shareholder requests for information disclosure. Using a unique dataset, we find evidence of both direct and spillover effects. In the domain of private politics, shareholder resolutions filed against a firm, and against others in its industry, increase its propensity to acquiesce to these shareholder requests. Similarly, in the realm of public politics, the threat of state regulations that target a firm's industry, -as well as those that target other industries-increases the likelihood that the firm will acquiesce to shareholder requests to disclose related information. These findings extend existing theory by showing how organizational change can be sparked by both activist groups and government policymakers, and that challenges mounted against a single firm (and industry) can inspire field-level (and state-level) changes. |
| Keywords: | social movements theory, institutional change theory, private politics, activist shareholder resolutions, climate change, environmental sustainability |
| Date: | 2008–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:09-019&r=cse |
| By: | Christer Ericsson (Department of Social Sciences, Malardalens University) |
| Abstract: | The comparison in this article between companies in Japan and Sweden showes that although there are obvious historical and cultures differences between companies in the two countrys; differences in the industrialization and in modernization; differences in how sport were introduced and how it was shaped; there are similarities in how companies used sport in company strategies. |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2008cf580&r=cse |